Force India face suspension from F1 team body

Force India face suspension from the Formula One Teams Association for breaking with the group by submitting an unconditional entry for next year's championship, Toyota's John Howett said. Force India team owner Vijay Mallya is due to arrive in Istanbul on Saturday and Howett said he had yet to speak to him about the situation.

Force India face suspension from the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) for breaking with the group by submitting an unconditional entry for next year's championship, Toyota's John Howett said on Friday.

"I think that it is the intention of FOTA to suspend them," Howett, vice-chairman of FOTA, told a news conference at the Turkish Grand Prix.

They would be the second of the 10 current teams to be suspended after former champions Williams also broke with the group and submitted an unconditional entry for 2010 for contractual reasons.

Force India team owner Vijay Mallya is due to arrive in Istanbul on Saturday and Howett said he had yet to speak to him about the situation.

FOTA are at loggerheads with the governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) over next year's regulations and the member teams have united to submit an entry conditional on them being rewritten.

Force India said they were "broadly in agreement with the FOTA objectives".

However the team added that "commercial obligations have demanded that Force India review its conditional entry jointly submitted by FOTA on deadline day (May 29).

"This has been done today with full transparency between all parties."

Howett said he understood the issues were "totally unrelated to any other team or support".

Force India signed a five-year engine deal with Mercedes at the end of last year along with a technical support agreement with McLaren.

The FIA plans to introduce an optional 40 million pound ($65.10 million) budget cap to keep teams in the sport and encourage new ones to enter at a time of global recession.

FOTA, chaired by Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo, has said the plan would create an unacceptable two-tier championship.

The Italian glamour team has also threatened to leave the championship, along with Renault, Toyota and the two Red Bull teams.